Ponte Vedra softball, one year removed from making the state semifinals, fell to Suwannee 8-2 in the Class 5A regional finals on Sunday, stopping short a season of success that ended too soon for anyone wearing white and blue.

“It sucks, there’s not a lot of ways to put it,” Sharks third baseman Brittany McGuire said. “Games like that happen to the best of them. Suwannee definitely deserved this win, they were hitting the ball really well and we weren’t. It’s hard to win when that happens.”

Audre Bryant was a big reason for the end. The Bulldogs (17-9) pitcher was marvelous from the circle, confounding a Ponte Vedra side that had scored eight runs in each of its previous two regional games. Bryant finished the game with eight strikeouts and gave up only two hits through the first six innings, six hits throughout the game.

“Her pitches had a strange spin on them all game,” Sharks coach Jerry Shepherd said. “We couldn’t make adjustments to it and it hurt us.”

She didn’t have a fastball that blew Sharks (22-6) batters away, but the lefty had an odd screw-drop that dove and darted along the outside corner and baffled nearly every batter she faced.

It wasn’t until the fifth when a Ponte Vedra batter made contact solid enough to reach the outfield. Even then, it was a pop fly to right field from Morgan Podany that harmlessly fell into the fielder’s glove for an out.

Brittany McGuire, whom Bryant had managed to pitch around in her first plate appearance for a walk, connected on a solo home run in the fourth inning for the home team’s first score. But at that point Suwannee had scored eight times, putting the game too far out of reach for a late rally.

“We didn’t pitch (Bryant) a lot this season, but we knew we had something in her,” Bulldogs coach Tommy Chambers said. “She doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but her pitches have great movement and she can locate it.”

Offensively, Suwannee couldn’t do much wrong. It struck first with a solo home run in the first inning. The lion’s share of Suwannee’s scoring came in the third, four runs scoring on five hits. Shayla Kicklighter hit a two-RBI single to score Kaityln Rogers and Jessie Tenbroeck, and Haejin Choe hit a shot that fell along the warning track in left-center field to score another two.

Bailiegh Williams, the ninth-hole hitter for the Bulldogs, hit a two-run home run in the fourth and Tenbroeck scored from third on a wild pitch.

Ponte Vedra pitcher Avery Geehr allowed seven earned runs in all, a far cry from the dominant body of work the junior pitcher has put together over the past two seasons. But even after getting roughed-up in the early goings, Geehr (22-4) maintained her composure and didn’t allow a hit over the final three innings of the game.

Even in the final inning, down by seven runs, the Sharks never gave up. Gabby Allerton and Taylor Zitiello both singled to start the final frame, doubling the team’s hit total to that point. Maddie Sypniewski drove in Ponte Vedra’s second run, scoring Allerton from third on a single, and Mary Jacobsen loaded the bases with one out to keep a sliver of hope alive.

The game and their season ended on a bang-bang play, a lineout from Podany to the shortstop that tossed the ball to third base for the final out. It ended may have ended suddenly, but it closed out a season that some players didn’t always expect.

“There were a lot of changes coming into the season and we didn’t know how good we were going to be,” Zitiello said. “I didn’t expect to go this far. I think once we got to the playoffs and started winning a few games, we started believing that we could go deep.”

As for what the future holds for this Ponte Vedra team, there is much to look forward to. Geehr, Podany and McGuire will all return.

They will lose seven seniors — Zitiello, Allerton, Audrey Amerson, Carlee Fava, Bailey Sazera, Erin Cochrane and Bella D’Errico. Though they may not have expected it at the beginning of the season, a run to the regional finals caps their high school careers.

But nevertheless, the future remains bright. It may be hard to see in the sudden aftermath of a loss, but McGuire still sees it.

“I see success,” McGuire said. “We have a shot at making it back to this round next year, hopefully even further. We lose a lot of people that we’re going to miss, but how we work in the offseason will determine whether or not we can make it past this point.”

Jacobsen was the lone batter for Ponte Vedra to record multiple hits, going 2 for 3 for the game. Geehr struck out two batters, allowing eight hits and seven earned runs.

For the Bulldogs, only two runners were left on base throughout the game. Suwannee had a baserunner in all but two innings, the second and the seventh. Williams, Kicklighter and Choe each drove in a pair of runs.